Abstract

This study is an examination of America's evolving sense of racial and national identity in the period from 1945 to the mid 1970s as refracted through Hollywood's representation of the American Civil War - a powerful event in American memory which still resonates today.

Civil War films have been the subject of study by film studies specialists and historians but they have concentrated on the early years highlighting the iconic films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939). The period 1945-75 has not received similar systematic attention, yet it is highly significant in American history covering as it does the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement.

The aim of the study is to show that history films can be used to assist in a better understanding of the past - not the 'past' that the history film purports to represent but the past of the moment of its production. This approach sees Hollywood films as untapped sources of evidence of changes in public perception about the issues of the day. This differs from the approach of most film historians who seek to examine the past by using archival and printed sources, such as newspapers, magazines and biography.

The study demonstrates the complex interaction of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement on Hollywood and how they influenced the discourse about race and national identity through popular culture. Ultimately it was the Civil Rights Movement that had the greater influence upon Civil War films. It also shows that Hollywood's presentation of the Civil War underwent a far more radical process of change than has hitherto been understood. By the late 1960s all of the early twentieth century myths had been questioned and overturned and African Americans had become part of mainstream America.